My Deleted Letters

Chloe Kelly

(Date TBA pending current Covid-19 restrictions)

Gallery Space 121

121 Anzac Pde, Kensington, Kudos Offsite

My Deleted Letters is an installation which explores the idea of deletion, as key, as performance, and as desire. It observes the impossibility of the promise of deletion, as when we delete, the site of meaning not only remains but grows. Instead of being erased, it grows in matter, whether that be data, body, graphite, or light. I’ve recorded all of my deleted letters for the past month and have programmed a cutting machine to extract them from a scrolling piece of paper suspended above lights. Through this continual deletion, the original meaning of the letter is obscured, but new meaning, new letters and new patterns take its place. The letter is gone, but the site in which the letter was extracted and re-extracted remains, exposed. By recording, projecting, and re-projecting my continued deletions, mistakes, and left-behind letters – I am exploring what it means to delete or leave something behind. In this I am inviting you to look at what didn’t make it into my texts, my emails, my essays, and my search histories – whether it be a typo or a biting of my tongue. What happens when we delete something? Where does it go? What happens when what was once deleted, becomes illuminated?